Shelby Rice - "A Flicker in the Night"

Shelby Rice's "A Flicker in the Night" is about the relationship between the narrator and his mother. The story tell s of how he or she would always wait for the mother to come in and tuck her/him in. Now, his/her mother no longer does this, and death is implied, so the narrator can no longer sleep.

I'm still not really sure how I should evaluate short-short stories, but I know that I really like yours. In particular, I love how you structured it to emphasize every sentence in the ending. It gives each sentence a real power that they might have otherwise lacked. The scene with the mother is touching, but something about it is also somewhat off-putting. Maybe it is because of the imagery of the perfume that would follow her everywhere. Something about the idea of this perfume clutching to her all hours of the day seems somewhat disturbing. How often does she reapply it? Or does she really overdo it that much at the beginning of the day?

Besides this one little flicker, I can't find anything to complain about though. There were a few grammatical issues and one case of a missing word or phrase, but those are things that you'll fix in revisions without issue. You portray your character's emotions well, and you make me remember times when I would stay near my parents because they were security. All in all, good job!

Alyson Smith - "Swiss Cheese"

Alyson Smith's "Swiss Cheese" is about a girl named Brett that is a surgical intern at a hospital. When a trauma patient comes in fromt the local prison, she gets assigned to work with him. This brings up terrible memories about her own mother's murder and leads to a confrontation with both the man that assigns her to the prisoner and the prisoner himself.

I enjoyed the general plot of the piece. It was nothing earth-shattering, but at the same time, I have to admit that it was more enjoyable than I thought it was going to be. I'm glad you didn't go for the plot-twist that I expected and have the prisoner be her mother's murderer. I also love the facts that you threw into the piece: the cows fall to relax them before they die, the way lethan injections worked, etc.

There was also a lot of language used that seemed completely unnecessary to tell this story. It's particularly bad at the beggining where you are describing the surgery of the banana. It almost sounds here like you are trying to be a Victorian author with lines such as, "She frowned in concentration, her hands, slippery with inner fluids, tried desperately to salvage the ripped, yellowed flesh that was coming apart even as she attempted to pus the squishy innard back inside the swollen cavity." It's just too much, and it detracts from the overall understanding of your work.

Second, while I'm not saying it's unbelievable because I have no idea, I'd find it hard for people to be willing to go through an expensive twelve-hour surgery to help a man destined to die in a week anyway. I understand that hospitals are supposed to do whatever possible to help a patient, but I'm curious if the prison would bother rushing the man to the hospital. The entire incident would likely cost a couple thousand dollars, and I'm not sure the general public would be all that happy about such things.

Molly Kirkpatrick - "Blood"

Molly Kirkpatrick's "Blood" is about a girl of an unknown age, assumed to be in her late teens to mid-twenties, that has been sent by her mother to a psychiatric ward after the death of her father. Throughout the story, we learn more about her relationship with her parents, her feelings about the ward, and who really should be put in the ward.

I really love the voice of the story. While I know it's a voice that you commonly use, it's something that you always manage to pull off very well in a variety of situations. However, in this particular story, the voice is not established early enough, and the first instance of that wonderful voice was found to be particularly jarring and surprising. It doesn't come up until page two's, "...but, dude... They really don't." An easy fix to this would just be to take that paragraph on page two (the entire thing) and transpose it to the opening of the piece. I think this would help immediately establish setting and would require very little work to make this entire issue disappear.

Another thing that I really liked was the use of the mother's need for cleanliness. It did border on disturbing, which I felt you really wanted to do. Anyway, I know that I was disturbed by her skin peeling from her hand because of showering too much. Normally, I'd say that it made me want to go take a shower, but... yeah.

I kind of had an issue with the character of Kado. While I know that he's not that important to the story, I feel that he relies a bit too much on the hippie/vegan stereotype to convey who he is. I cannot really think of any unique details to his characterization. Rather, he seems to be there to provide a new element to go back to the father. He seems unnecessary and could be cut entirely without affecting the main story.

I also must admit that I'm not a big fan of how much money they seem to have: a beachhouse and a boat and goodies at a marina seem much for people that live on a teacher's salary exclusively. How the hell could they have afforded such things?

Paul Vance - "Support Group"

Paul Vance's "Support Group" is about a man that attends a meeting for sex addiction? those sexually abused? something like that... Anyway, he talks about his issued with masturbation and women throughout his life, constantly apologizing for his awkwardness and inability to say "those words." In the end, he just walks out of the meeting.

I really love that you did this piece entirely in dialogue. It works really well and is exceptionally entertaining to read. Some of the lines are really funny, and one really gets a sense for the character. He's got some unique views on life, in general, and the structure of this piece really works. That being said, sometimes his awkwardness comes off as too-heavy and gets annoying for the reader to trudge through. I like the awkwardness, but you have to be careful not to make it TOO heavy-handed.

There were some images that he started and worked with that were interesting and weird, in a good way, like the rotting pee for semen. They really helped distinguish the work. The were some areas, on the other hand, where the image was cut off and it sounded weird, like when he said, "I still did it in the trees after that, though. And the squirrels..." Be careful in things like this because it sounds like he was doing something sexual to squirrels.

The ending was odd though. With him just walking out, I wasn't sure how to take it. Was it supposed to say how he didn't identify with the people in the meeting at all or about how selfish he was? I just had no idea how to understand this.

Emily Feagan - "The Marriage of Ruth and Isaac"

Emily Feagan's "The Marriage of Ruth and Isaac" is about a mother that is hesitant about her daughter's wedding and can't show completely happiness. She thinks they are getting married too young, too insecure, and without enough knowledge. She also seems to want to avoid having a case of empty-nest syndrome by clinging onto her little girl as long as possible.

I still really love your rustic imagery and nostalgic memories that anybody can seem to have fondness for despite the fact that the memories don't belong to them. I also love the use of floral descriptions and the importance of flowers in the story. However, I felt that you really could have done more with both the use of the pastel-colored flowers and the use of flowers as a device in the story. With them, you could have expanded the story further and fleshed out the characters some more.

I feel like the negative aspects of the mother are told to us and never really shown to us. Why is she the practical one? What makes her so much more practical than her daughter about this wedding? Is she even that much more practical, or is she just trying to be negative to hold onto Ruth longer? A couple added scenes of wedding prepartion can really get this aspect of the mother across well.

The story, as it stands now, has places where you can easily transition to those scenes without moving the story around easily. Really, all your story needs is some more expansion, and I know that with that expansion, the change at the end (the support for the daughter) will seem more powerful.

Kevin Boy - "Where to Start?"

"Where to Start?" is about a sheltered boy, Darroll, that feels imprisoned by his father and mother. One day, when he went to public school for all of one day, his grandfather delivered him in an old sports car that fascinated him as a child. Later, when he died, his parents told him that the grandfather had sold it to pay off medical bills, and when he finds the grandfather's will, he runs from the house to find what rightfully belonged to him.

I liked the idea of the kingdom, prison, and home being the same general thing. You used some references to it later in the piece, but on the other hand, I think you could have played up the parallel more. I would have loved for you to use these three images to frame everything that can be done. I think this would give both a better sense of character and a better sense of his hatred of his home life.

On the other hand, the characters seem flat and the story thus seems incomplete. I believe an ending where nothing is resolved except the character's intention CAN work, but at the same time, everything else has to be perfect to make it work. Where the story is now, it seems like a story that ends midway through the plot. On the other hand, if you can make the decision to leave seem like a more monumental decision, then the success of his endeavor would seem less important.

Janelle Green - "Safe"

Music for this reading: Anastastia Prokhodko - Mamo

Janelle Green's "Safe" is about a college student that lives alone. Her parents divorced when she was ten-years-old, and ever since then, she's been taught and keen to hate men. When she began college, her father gave her dog to help protect her. This particular night, the main character finds her dog to be acting oddly, and when a man breaks in without the dog's intervention, the student is put through hell and almost raped.

I think the best part of this whole scene is the history you have given this character. She's extremely-round and her irrational fears are easily justified, although, I still found one scene to be  bit much. Then again, it wasn't really that big of a deal. Another good part of the piece was the structure of the whole thing, the long paragraphs giving the sensation of somebody that was panicked and fearful. I bet it would be even more effective if you had smaller paragraphs at the beginning to show her usual thought process.

The character's use of the cell phone seems odd, to tell the truth. At first, she's too scared to grab it and use it. Then, she grabs it as she leaves her room to check on the health of her dog that she's worried about. Then, in her moment of greatest panic, she is able to use it and speak coherent sentences to the officer. I wonder if you should find a way to disable the cell phone, giving the story greater tension. Admittedly, it would have to change how you got to the end, but I know you could do it.

There was also one line on page five that really stood out as weird. "It was interesting because the mask he was wearing almost seemed familiar, but I was too scared to really think about it." That's not something I would be able to let go if I felt I was in mortal danger because, damn it, if I know the assailant, I'm going to call them out on it before they get me. It also seemed odd, based on what I got of her personality, that she would notice something like that and immediately let go of it. It would cause her more panic, at the very least.

Jhumpa Lahiri - "Once in a Lifetime"

Jhumpa Lahiri's "Once in a Liftime" is about a young girl telling her perspective of  meeting of cultures, of two families (one hers and one mine) that had been close but had been separated by a new culture for my parents, a culture they developed when we lived in Bombay, a culture more American than those that had lived in America.

Of course, the most interesting part of this story is the interesting use of the first- and second-person perspective to tell the tale. This does a couple things. First of all, it helps the reader to feel even more familiar with the culture than most of the readers would be. It stops the reader from feeling alienated by Indian culture in that way. It also creates a sense of nostalgia in the reader, despite the fact that the plotline of this story clearly did not happen to the any member of the audience. It also makes the loss of "my" mother at the end of the piece more poignant because it makes one put his/her mother in there in place of the woman that's in there.

Another interesting aspect of this piece is the time skips that begin and end the story. Both time skips alienate the two families, and both times, neither of them ever seem to reconcile besides the young narrator of the story. In fact, I would argue that by the end, the only tie between the two families is the tie the narrator feels for "my" family, and as I am me, a possible sense of attachment I have for the narrator and/or her family. It's a tie that can only been seen in the younger generation, as the parents are too distant from each other to be repaired.

The "you and I" narration of this story is something that I, as a writer, would love to attempt one time. It's a type of narration that seems to be expressly forbidden, but at the same time, expressly poignant in  way that no other perspective can be. I would like to attempt to achieve that balance that allows for this poignancy.

Shelby Rice - "The Bleeps and Blips of Life"

Music for this reading: 4Fun - Love or Leave

Shelby Rices "The Bleeps and Blips of Life" is about the character Anna. Her father is in a coma in the hospital room, dying. She's always by his side. Then, her sister shows up, and the reader begins to learn about Anna's relationship to her family, her stubborn streak, and her broken relationship with her mother and sister.

I love the descriptions in this piece. The second paragraph of the first page was absolutely amazing because that's exactly what it's like, even though you barely realize it. I also really like the fullness of the characters Karen and Anna. I felt that I could understand them both and could try to take either side. At the same time, I felt that you completely villainized the mother, giving her no redeemable traits. I understand that from the narrator's perspective there aren't, but that doesn't mean you can't hide something redeeming in there for the reader to pick up.

I also really liked your use of dialogue. The line where Karen stumbled out that it might be a good idea to take their father off life support was perfect!

I also feel like I would have liked to see some actual interaction with the mother, just in a memory or something. Everything we get about the mother was told to us by one of the daughters, and we never really get to see the favoritism or the general badness for ourselves. It also seems that the only real reason that Anna dislikes Karen is that she was liked by the mom. Is that supposed to be the only reason? None of the other justifications given by Anna seem anything more than normal siblings.

Christina Kettering - "Password Protected"

Music for this reading: Marija Šestić - Rijeka bez imena

Christina Kettering's "Password Protected" does two things in its narrative. First, it tells the story of the narrator and her brother Thomas, expounding on their relationship through the use of social networking and how they presented themselves on such social networks. Second, it also tells of a general criticism of the use of social networks and what people put on these social networks.

The things that really work include the content of the social network. I could see all of it being on a Facebook wall, and at the same time, reading these various different types of updates weren't boring because they were unique enough. The only one I wondered about was the event for a suicide. I'm pretty sure that Facebook would take that down, but at the same time, that doesn't mean she didn't find it before it was removed. These updates were also great ways to transition to the back story and tell more about the relationship between the two.

That being said, I feel that the transitions back weren't very smooth. Since you had tense issues throughout the piece, the transitions weren't always totally apparently until a couple lines into the paragraph. One way to help alleviate this is to change the tense of the story. I'm thinking that using the present tense for the present day sections and the perfect tense for the memories might help to ease transitions a bit. There might still need to be a little more tweaking you have to do.

My biggest criticism though is that I don't feel like I know enough about the narrator alone. I definitely know here relationship to her brother, but all I really know of her alone is that she's private and isn't really trusting. Maybe a few more revealing characteristics?